Root & Rebound

Court-Ordered Debt

The COURT-ORDERED DEBT CHAPTER gives a basic overview of court-ordered debt to help you understand the money you may owe because of your past court involvement. You will learn the different kinds of court-ordered debt, what happens to these debts while you are incarcerated, and how these debts can affect you when you return to the community.

DISCLAIMER – YOUR RESPONSIBILITY WHEN USING THIS GUIDE: When putting together the Roadmap to Reentry: A California Legal Guide, we did our best to give you useful and accurate information. However, the laws change frequently and are subject to differing interpretations. We do not always have the resources to make changes to this informational material every time the law changes. If you use information from the Roadmap to Reentry legal guide, it is your responsibility to make sure that the law has not changed and applies to your particular situation. If you are incarcerated, most of the materials you need should be available in your institution’s law library. The Roadmap to Reentry guide is not intending to give legal advice, but rather legal information. No attorney-client relationship is created by using any information in this guide. You should always consult your own attorney if you need legal advice specific to your situation.

INTRODUCTION

Many people coming home from prison or jail are surprised to find that they owe lots of money to various courts, agencies, and people. The money you owe can make it very hard to get back on your feet, which can leave you feeling frustrated and discouraged.

Unfortunately, this Chapter includes a lot of BAD NEWS about court-ordered debt because most of the laws that control court-ordered debt are NOT in your favor. However, reentry advocates—and even some politicians— who realize that this kind of debt harms not only formerly incarcerated people who are trying to start over, but also the communities they are returning to, are working to change these laws. In the meantime, this Chapter will give you some important information to help you better understand your rights, responsibilities, and opportunities when it comes to managing money that you owe due to your past court involvement (referred to in the rest of the Chapter as “court-ordered debt”).

This site, and any downloads or external sites to which it connects, are not intended to provide legal advice, but rather general legal information. No attorney-client relationship is created by using any information on this site, or any downloads or external links on the site. You should consult you own attorney if you need legal advice specific to your situation. Root & Rebound offers this site "as-is" and makes no representations or warranties of any kind concerning content, express, implied, statutory, or otherwise, including without limitation, warranties of accuracy, completeness, title, marketability, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, noninfringement, or the presence or absence of errors, whether or not discoverable. In particular, Root & Rebound does not make any representations of warranties that this site, or any information within it or any downloads or external links, is accurate, complete, or up-to-date, or that it will apply to your circumstances. If you or your company or agency uses information from this site, it is you responsibility to make sure that the law has not changed and applies to your particular situation.